Katie Hyson

Katie Hyson reports on racial justice and social equity for KPBS. Prior to joining KPBS, Katie reported on the same beat for the local NPR/PBS affiliate in Gainesville, Florida. She won awards for her enterprise reporting on the erasure of a Black marching band style from Gainesville’s fields, one woman’s fight to hold onto home as local officials closed her tent camp, and more. Many of her stories were picked up by national and international outlets, including those on a public charter school defying the achievement gap, the police K9 mauling of a man who ran from a traffic stop, and conditions for pregnant women at a nearby prison.

Prior to that beat, she supervised the newsroom’s student digital team, served as a producer for the award-winning serial podcast “Four Days, Five Murders,” taught journalism classes for the University of Florida, and designed and launched a practicum series. She helped create the university’s first narrative nonfiction magazine, Atrium. She also earned her master’s in mass communications there, in a stunning act of treachery to her undergraduate alma mater, Florida State University. She is an alumna of the 2019 summer cohort of AIR Full Spectrum.

Hyson entered journalism after a series of community-oriented jobs including immigration advising, organic farming, nonprofit sex worker assistance. She loves sunshine, adrenaline and a great story.